| Session Title: An Association to Improve Evaluation of Development Aid |
| Expert Lecture Session 913 to be held in the Granite Room Section C on Saturday, Nov 8, 3:05 PM to 3:50 PM |
| Sponsored by the International and Cross-cultural Evaluation TIG |
| Chair(s): |
| Ronald Visscher, Western Michigan University, ronald.s.visscher@wmich.edu |
| Presenter(s): |
| Paul Clements, Western Michigan University, clements@wmich.edu |
| Abstract: For 60 years the evaluation of development assistance programs has been controlled mainly by donor agencies. These agencies face profoundly mixed incentives, however, when it comes to evaluating their own programs. Although the need for learning and accountability in this field is particularly great, there is considerable evidence that in practice aid evaluations are inconsistent and often weak and/or positively biased. This lecture argues that development aid could be greatly improved if the management of development programs and projects could be governed by an effective orientation to cost-effectiveness. This in turn could be substantially achieved if evaluations routinely made consistent and reliable estimates of each program's total impacts and cost-effectiveness. In order to accomplish this, the lecture proposes the establishment of a professional association of development program evaluators along the lines of associations of accountants and auditors, and it discusses the structure of and steps towards establishing such an association. |